And an educated mind is nothing but the God-given mind of a child after his parents' and his grandparents' generation have got through molding it. We can't help teaching you; you will ask that of us; but we are prone to teach you what we know, and I am going, now and again, to warn you: Remember we really don't know anything. Keep your baby eyes (which are the eyes of genius) on what we don't know. That is your playground, bare and graveled, safe and unbreakable.
Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.
Care like hell! Sit around the bars and drink, and pose, and pretend, all you want to, but in reality, deep down underneath, care like hell.
I have seen the future, and it works.
I hunted far enough to suspect that the Fathers of the Republic who wrote our Sacred Constitution of the United States not only did not, but did not want to, establish a democratic government.
If we would leave parties to the politicians, and would vote not for the party, not even for men, but for the city, and the State, and the nation, we should rule parties, and cities, and States, and nation.
If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in- then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it.
In all cities, the better classes- the business men- are the sources of corruption, but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes.
It is our knowledge- the things we are sure of- that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning.
It is possible to get an education at a university. It has been done; not often.
It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men.
Morality is moral only when it is voluntary.
My summary of all our experiences was that it showed that heaven and hell are one place, and we all go there. To those who are prepared, it is heaven; to those who are not fit and ready, it is hell.
Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised... Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein.
Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.
Somebody must take a chance. There are monkeys who became men, and the monkeys who didn't are still jumping around in trees making faces at the monkeys who did.
The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle.
The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people.
The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.
The politer the society, the greater the lies it requires.
The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
We in America are fighting the money power; but if men can elsewhere get the power without money, what so they care about money? Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.
We know that there is no absolute knowledge, that there are only theories; but we forget this. The better educated we are, the harder we believe in axioms.
We need some great failures. Especially we ever-successful Americans- conscious, intelligent, illuminating failures.
Whenever anything extraordinary is done in American municipal politics, whether for good or for evil, you can trace it almost invariably to one man. The people do not do it. Neither do the 'gangs,' 'combines,' or political parties.
You ask men in office to be honest; I ask them to serve the public.
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